Andrew Mitchell questioned on Rwanda aid approved on his last day in the job

Mr Mitchell today told a parliamentary committee that he had kept 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office "in the loop" about the aid, and said it was a collective Government decision - and not one made by him alone - to green-light the aid.

Former International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell today denied he acted as a "rogue minister" when he controversially approved £16 million in aid for Rwanda on his last day in the job.

The support raised eyebrows because it came after an interim report to the United Nations alleged involvement by the African country's government in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, apparently funding rebels accused of atrocities.

Mr Mitchell today told a parliamentary committee that he had kept 10 Downing Street and the Foreign Office "in the loop" about the aid, and said it was a collective Government decision - and not one made by him alone - to green-light the aid.

The former minister, who resigned as Chief Whip last month after admitting swearing at police, also denied that Britain had "gone out on a limb" in continuing its support for President Paul Kagame when other donors were suspending or delaying aid payments in response to allegations linking him to the M23 militia.

Mr Mitchell revealed that, highly unusually, he learnt a week before the September Cabinet reshuffle that David Cameron was planning to make him Chief Whip. As a result, he said he made an effort to finalise outstanding decisions in order to leave a clear desk for his successor.

The £16 million amounted to half of Britain's annual budget support to Mr Kagame's administration, and had already been delayed from July because of concerns over the situation in the DRC, said Mr Mitchell. Because of the Kigali government's failure to live up fully to conditions laid down by Mr Cameron, it was decided to channel half of the money directly to education and agriculture projects in the country, rather than giving it to the Rwandan government to spend.

New International Development Secretary Justine Greening will decide whether to press ahead with the remaining £16 million aid, due at the end of 2012, after the final report of the group of experts on Rwanda is delivered to the UN at the end of November, he said.

"The British Government decided - not some rogue minister - what was the right response," Mr Mitchell told the House of Commons International Development Committee. "We made that response very much on the understanding that there will be the second tranche to be discussed in November and December in the light of the group of experts' report. That was why we took the decision we did."

He added: "The decisions were made entirely properly through cross-government consultation, all relevant departments and ministers being consulted and that was how we reached our decision."

He said that, while countries including Germany and the Netherlands had suspended direct support to the Kagame government, the EU continued its aid programme unchanged, while the US cut 200,000 dollars (£125,000) from military support but pressed ahead with a much larger 160 million-dollar (£100 million) programme of development aid.

"This suggestion that Britain has gone out on a limb here isn't true," he told the committee.

Mr Mitchell added: "Taking away budget support would have no effect on the elite in Kigali, but it would, bluntly, take girls out of school elsewhere in that country. It might make us feel better to remove budget support and avoid taking these difficult decisions, but it would not affect who makes decisions in Kigali and it would have the effect of damaging the poverty programme."

The interim UN report in June alleged that Rwandan army members had entered Congo to reinforce rebel positions and had provided logistical support and safe passage for M23 leader Bosco Ntaganda. The emergence of the M23 - a several hundred-strong group of defectors from the Congolese army - has been linked to an upsurge of violence against civilians in the Great Lakes region. Kigali has strongly denied any involvement with the group.

Mr Mitchell was challenged by Labour committee member Richard Burden over why Britain had "apparently uniquely" decided that the Rwandan government had ended practical support for the M23.

He responded: "We weren't saying it had ended, we weren't in a position to do that, but the ceasefire had held."

But Mr Burden quoted from a letter the then International Development Secretary sent to Mr Cameron in August explaining why he thought the aid should be handed over, in which he said: "Reporting shows that practical support for the M23 has now ended."

Mr Mitchell replied: "That was the judgment that the British Government, through its different agencies, had reached."

Mr Burden said it was unclear why, if the Government had enough concern about Kigali's activities in the Congo to delay aid in July, it did not wait until the final UN report in November to decide whether to resume payments.

"The question is... why did you reinstate aid before that second report had come out?" he asked.

Mr Mitchell replied: "The reason is that budget support enables the Government to fund pro-poor poverty programmes which deliver value for money to the British taxpayer in terms of the objectives we are seeking to pursue. That is one of the factors determining whether and when we made budget support payments."

Asked if he still stands by the decision, Mr Mitchell responded: "Absolutely."

Explaining why he made sure to announce the aid decision before leaving the Department for International Development, Mr Mitchell told the committee: "What is true is that when I left DFID, very unusually... I had known for more than a week that I would be moving to be Government Chief Whip.

"So I made sure in the interests of my successor that all the decisions on my desk should be made, so that she had a clear desk when she arrived."

Mr Mitchell said he did not come under any pressure from other donor countries to withhold funding from the Kagame regime.

He told the committee that he did not have any conversations with Mr Kagame and his ministers without the knowledge of officials at DFID.

"Everything I had done in making the decision, I did in consultation with my colleagues, with total propriety," he said.

He denied that his personal involvement, before becoming International Development Secretary, as a volunteer with the Conservative Party-backed Project Umubano social action programme in Rwanda had influenced his decision.